The San Diego Theatre Critics Circle has been presenting the Craig Noel Awards — honoring the best in local theater — for 16 years now. As a voting member of the group, I've been participating in the event for about a decade.

In that time, I’ve seen a lot of moving and funny and poignant moments, as award-winners take the stage to accept their awards — many of them still reeling from surprise, and some of whom have never been recognized for their work in this way before. (The awards are named for the late founding director of the Old Globe Theatre.)

And yet it’s hard to remember an acceptance speech that landed with quite so much impact as that given last week by Intrepid Theatre’s Christy Yael-Cox when the latest Noel Awards were presented before more than 600 people at the Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation.

Here’s the video (shot by volunteer Jonathan Hammond) of her full remarks:

Yael-Cox, who is Intrepid’s producing artistic chief, won for directing Suzan-Lori Parks’ “Father Comes Home From the Wars, Parts 1, 2 and 3,” a play that looks at our country’s racial divides through the prism of the Civil War. (Here’s my review of the production.)

She actually wound up in a tie for the award with Yolanda Franklin and Claudio Raygoza, directors of Ion Theatre’s “The Ballad of Emmett Till,” another local premiere of a play about the legacy of racial tragedy.

“We have to look for ways to tell the stories that lend themselves to healing,” Yael-Cox said, in talking about her own sense of responsibility — as a person who has benefited from white privilege — to hear, acknowledge and help raise up those who have not had the same advantages.

The play itself was a potent reminder of the roots of America’s racial agonies, and it was brought to life by a multiracial cast (including assistant director Antonio “T.J.” Johnson, a San Diego acting treasure) who did justice to its poetry but also didn’t flinch from its often difficult moments.

Yael-Cox’s perspective helps translate the potency of Parks’ art into a real-life resolve to make a difference; it’s well worth considering, and taking to heart.